Questions concerning WAN configuration

[L. Linn Hower]

Hello.  I am looking for suggestions on how to improve/increase the the
capibility of my wide area network and distributed applications.  Here is
what my current setup looks like:


                  Sun Workstations running 4.0.1

         |                                              |
         |                                              |
         |  +---+                            +---+      |
         |--| X |============================| Y |------|
         |  +---+      6.0A MCP/IR link      +---+      |
         |                                              |
         |                                              |
         |                                   +---+      |
         |                                   | Z |------|
         |                                   +---+      |
         |                                              |
         |                                              |
     ethernet A                                     ethernet B

The internet link is limited to 32 to 128 kbps.  There are actually a pair
of MUX's (that I haven't drawn) in this link also.  I have two classes of
applications that exchange data between the A and B ethernets:

	1) applications with large data transfers that swamp
		the link's bandwidth

	2) interactive applications that send small bursts of data.

My problem is: when the link speed is low, the class 1 applications ruin
the interactive nature of the class 2 applications.

The MCP board will support up to 4 loadsharing sunchannels, but how can I
link an application with a specific subchannel.  I don't think this one is
possible, but I might be missing something obvious.

What about connecting one point-to-point link to Y and a second
point-to-point link to Z?  Will this work at all?  Will packets destined
for B.Y and B.Z be routed on the different links?  If this works, I could
run all class 1 applications on Y and class 2 applications on Z.

Are their any other approaches?  Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Basically what I want is to be able to assign priorities to the IP
packets.

  Linn

--
  Linn Hower	lh1 at INEL.GOV		Phone: 208-526-9353
		at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Idaho Falls, ID